Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God, People, Relationships, Social Justice.
Tags: God, Jesus Christ, Kenny Luck, The Irreligious Christ, The Meeting House
So, as I wrote in Ways to deliberate, yesterday I had a book study on Dream: Have You Caught God’s Vision? (here’s the Amazon link). The chapter we covered is called The Velvet Touch, and talks about the people we tend to shy away from, and the subjects of inclusion and exclusion. While the book is geared toward men, this chapter applies to all people, and challenges the reader to look at how and why Jesus was so inclusive in who He associated with and ministered to.
The fact is that Jesus was EXTREMELY counter-cultural to the establishment of His day. I think that is something as Christians we tend to forget, for we have become used to the wedding of church and state that occurred for many decades and (I think) is still ingrained in western Christendom’s psyche. Perhaps the degree of ingraining is lessening, but we still do not en masse view Jesus’ message the way the 1st century Jews and early Christians would have.
Some of the things we tossed about during the discussion were the types of people each of us tends to shy away from, and also the various reasons why we exclude. Reasons such as: a focus on a person’s inabilities as oppose to his/her abilities; a failure to look beyond the external and see that person as a person – someone who has hopes and dreams and likes and dislikes and a personality; fear of rejection or judgment from others if we’re seen associating with this person; and the list goes on.
A couple of points of hope we ended on were that firstly, recognising the tendency to exclude within us is the first step to changing (think Step 1 in a 12-step AA program). Secondly, our responsibility is not to just recognise when we are being exclusive, but when others around us are, and even point it out to them. This should be done in love and with gentleness, but should sometimes be done nonetheless. The person who is excluding another may not even realise they are doing so, and may appreciate it being pointed out to them in a supportive way.
DH
PS. I may post some more on the idea of Jesus being counter-cultural. If you’re interested in hearing more, and especially if you’ve never heard Jesus being described that way, check out The Meeting House and specifically the sermon series The Irreligious Christ by teaching pastor Bruxy Cavey.
Posted by David Hiran Watson in Daily Life-Walk, Faith, God.
Tags: Bible, Christian walk, Faith, forgiveness, God, grace, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, love, mercy, repentance, Satan, sin
Why is is that whenever you are trying to go deeper with God, to get to the next level as it were, there’s such a struggle involved in it? It’s like at that very point, Paul’s words, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19) kick into effect. Sometimes I wonder if my heart desire is true or not. One moment, I’m saying to God, “Father, I want to know you more and I surrender all of myself”, and then the next moment I’m doing that which is the very opposite of surrender. Now I know that Satan is our Accuser and that a good portion of the doubts about my heart desire stems from his lies. But wait…the Holy Spirit just reminded me of something: God does not accuse us in any way! That means that not just a good portion, but ALL of the doubts stems from his lies. That still doesn’t excuse my sin, nor diminish the need to overcome it. But, as Paul goes on to say, “Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7:20). And further on in the chapter, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7: 24b-25). I can only keep coming back to He is the Author and Perfecter of my faith, and that because I live in the bounds of time, every moment I am able to make a fresh choice to pursue God or not. That means that even though I sought to grow in God one moment, fell to sin the next moment, if I repent and seek to grow in Him again the next moment after that, the choice I made to sin is over and done with. That is, my sin is forgiven, and the choice I made doesn’t negate the choice to repent and seek Him again! And furthermore, the choice to sin didn’t negate the choice to seek God in the first place (or moment); it just slowed down the process. Amen, thank you God for Your grace and mercy, love and forgiveness.
DH
